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Belt Ranking System
The Belt Ranking System is the universal system of signifying a martial artist's increasing level of technical knowledge in martial arts. While nearly all martial artists practice multiple forms of martial arts due to the diversity of MMA, a practitioner follows the belt ranking for only one discipline, as it the Association of Martial Arts recognizes only one discipline per practitioner can be 'accurately' measured. History The Belt Ranking System follows the tradition of many historical east asian martial arts. At the time, only traditional martial arts seemed to have followed this system, especially Japanese Martial Arts. The Judo ranking system developed the modern staple of belt rankings when it spread across the world. Brazilian Jujitsu adopted this system as well. Sports and civilian Krav Maga used a similar system but with patches instead of belts. When the Association of Martial Arts was officially formed, the Martial Family declared all known and registered martial arts would follow a central belt system. Although they allowed certain traditions to follow, all must be translated to the official belt ranking for national and international competition. The Belt system is followed by all Dojos, regardless of professional or amateur status. It has been used as a measurement of ability by Dojos willing to recruit and trade-in martial artists. Companies looking for sponsorship have also used belt rankings to find martial arts who could be good marketing tools. The emergence of Ronin and integration of underground fighters led to changes in the issuing belts. Since many Ronin, such as Sakurai, showed grer Criticism Many Dojos and martial artists have criticized the belt ranking system as a way to regulate and control martial arts practice. Most criticize belt rankings in general as an inaccurate measure of skill since it is based on whether the Sensei approves of the belt and the quantity of training. Since most martial artists train in more than one martial arts, a belt seems to be unnecessary. Many Senseis criticize the belts for distracting the overall goal of martial arts practice and even professional competition. A high belt rank doesn't always correlate with a high professional fighting rank. Fighters also seek sponsorship to gain more money and have tried to commit to increasing their professional rank rather than focus of practicing a discipline. Because of this, many high ranking martial artists are not at the belt ranking that matches their skill and achievements. Because of this, a central belt system seems obsolete. The level of martial arts training and competition differentiates between countries and regions and a central belt system is too simple to try to regulate the path of a discipline. At the same time, the definition of 'training' is trivial, since competition counts as the practice of martial artists Dojos and families who follow single traditional martial arts criticize the system for breaking traditions by forcing them to adapt old belt rankings to the central one. For example, a 1st degree black belt in traditional judo may have a longer path and is given at a different skill level versus the central one. Trivia * So far the only 10th Degree Red belts are legends in martial arts, such as Wong Fei-Hung, Bruce Lee, and Helio Gracie. * Wong Fu-Xi is the youngest person to achieve 8th Degree Black due to saving and rebuilding the Shaolin Temple